The present invention relates to display racks for articles of merchandise which may be utilized to present for display and inspection by a customer articles carried thereby and also to provide a simplified means for withdrawing an article and additional simplified means for replacing articles in the rack. The racks may also be readily reloaded.
A major object of modern merchandising displays is to maximize the utilization of wall or shelf space so as to present a large number of items in a relatively small area. In order to maximize customer appeal, the items should be presented in as neat an arrangement as possible and in a manner which makes it possible for the customer to quickly and easily locate the product or products which he or she is looking for.
While it is fairly easy to arrange a large number of small articles of merchandise, such as lipsticks or other cosmetics, in a neat and orderly manner, the merchandise can become quickly and completely disarranged as the customers go through the merchandise looking for a particular item. An arrangement which becomes helter-skelter and disorganized is unattractive and will cause the customer to become frustrated if he or she cannot quickly find what he or she is looking for. For this reason, it is highly desirable to provide a display rack which enables a customer to inspect merchandise and return it to its proper place in a simple manner.
Methods of display and presentation have been sought that make it possible for the small merchandise to be displayed with economical use of space. To a large extent, small merchandise has been encapsulated and placed on cards with mounting holes so that they could be mounted on hooks which, in turn, are supported either on a rack or pegboards, or otherwise arranged so that they at least can maintain their integrity and be, at the same time, displayed in such a way that at least the outermost unit on each hanging rod or pegboard arrangement will be visible and presented neatly.
This method of display, however, requires the forming of the card and the mounting of the item on the card and the utilization of the usually horizontally extending rod from a pegboard or rack. A more orderly arrangement can be achieved by having these individual items, such as lipsticks, mounted in racks or chutes where adjacent vertical rows are separated from each other and the bottom unit in each row may be pulled out. However, this bottom unit, unless some special provision is made on the side walls of the chute, is rather difficult to extract. The weight of the entire row is pressing on the unit and, once pulled, it is very difficult to return it. Therefore, where vertical racks have been used, there has been substantial loss or, at least, misplacement of merchandise.